Somehow, I’m at a loss to find a sizzling opening line to draw all you readers into this article off the bat. So I’ll just start talking instead. The opener tonight was a fellow by the name of Ridley Bent. Actually, his name isn’t Ridley Bent, but that’s the moniker he performs under. I’d seen him play once before, about a year earlier at the New Music West festival. This time through, I enjoyed the set better than what I recall from before, but that might have just been because he was alongside so much other music last time that I was just too worn out to pay proper attention to something new. Hey, I have my moments of weakness too.

Anyhow, he played completely solo this time, instead of with a band. Just him and an acoustic guitar. His songs are unfortunately a bit homogenous, but they do have their shining moments. He sings with this exaggerated southern drawl, and every now and then, leaps into a big yell that comes off as pretty impressive. And he's got a song where he talks about being this person (Johnny Cash, Humphrey Bogart etc) when he's doing that (smokin', tokin', etc) that's extremely clever. But I just don’t get the impression that he’s entirely comfortable up there. Sure, the entire room hung well back for most of his set, but hell, prove them wrong, show them you have qualities that they should be dancing up a storm to. He sheepishly requested that people go buy his CD if they like the music, and had a nervous smile and twitching eyes the whole time he was up there between songs. This was compounded by him forgetting the words to one of the songs he performed.

He sang us some reggae, which was cool, sang us “Rattlesnake Moonshine,” and ended off with his definite set highlight. He had been wearing a shirt saying something about a black Lexus in a curly font that I couldn’t completely read, as it wrapped over his shoulder. It was a storytellerish song like all the others, but at the choruses, he just wailed out with,.” And somehow, the crowd began to sing along to this line. Very interesting, especially coming from an audience that seemed so not in touch with the guy.

Just before Danny Michel came out on stage, I realized that the paper snowflakes, which had adorned the brick wall behind the stage since well before Christmas, were finally gone. Now there would be nothing to ponder if I ever became bored at a Richard’s show. Thankfully, that’s not something I had to be concerned about once Michel kicked in.

He started off with “Invisible Man,” the almost-title-track from his latest album (Tales From The Invisible Man), a trundling and loping tune, with quiet, chopped-up vocals and a plodding, basslike guitar riff. Oodles of fun, it’s a theatrical song that indeed brings to mind a shadowy figure creeping about. Michel is smiling and very mobile on stage. Even when he’s singing (and therefore somewhat tied to the microphone), he’ll be tossing his head about and using facial expressions to get across what he’s singing. But making the show even more friendly is Michel’s banter between songs.

After playing the delightful “Newton’s Apple,” he turned to his black-suited, white-tied bassist John Dinsmore and said, “Doesn’t John look nice? I didn’t notice before. I was having an episode… you look like you should be in the Cars, man.” He then went on to tell us about his recent Juno Award nomination. The Juno Awards were held just a couple of days before this show. Michel had been up for “Best New Artist,” but lost out to jazz guy Michael Buble. “Booooooooble,” he said, mocking the name good-naturedly. “He took the shiny thing away from me.” He said that he had been walking through the Cranbrook airport and some guy just yelled out to him, “Danny, you got fucking robbed!”

Continuing with the Juno speak, he informed all of us that everyone at the Junos got this crazy gift basket full of things like bedding and gift certificates for cosmetic surgery. “What am I gonna get, botox injections? Maybe one boob… ‘oh there’s something different about you today…,’” he joked. “Alice Cooper [who attended the Junos] made it worth it. He’s the nicest old lady.”

Musically, he’s just awesome live. He has a very real voice, very childlike in a way. Playful and deliberate. He’s quirky, he turns frequently to kick at the cymbals behind him, and stomps around the stage, flipping his guitar upwards and around him. At times, he’ll drop the singing down to a whispery a cappella, and then the next second he’ll be into something that sounds more like a drunken bar chant.

Medleys and chunks of other songs crept into his set at points. He tacked the signature riff from David Bowie's “Ziggy Stardust” onto the end of one song, and later on launched into a rotating pile of song snippets, laughingly mimicked by his band, including songs like Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Aerosmith and Run DMC’s “Walk This Way,” and Queen and Bowie’s “Under Pressure.” Michel then spun to his drummer John Obercian and asked him if he knew “Funky Cold Medina,” by Tone Loc. The drummer looked skyward while still playing “Under Pressure,” gave a pensive look, and slowly filtered in the “Funky Cold Medina” beat. The crowd went bananas over this. Tone Loc! Who knew?

More amusing inter-song chit-chat, this time about his show in Nelson, where he was on a bill with Long John Baldry, “the Baron Von Munchausen of blues,” and a jazz band. For some reason, this led into the song “Two Hearts,” a ridiculously fun song about the vibrant and carefree 80’s youth of his. In the midst of the song, Dinsmore chugged a beer and audibly burped, giving Michel fits of laughter. After that song finished up, the band left Michel alone on stage, and someone in the crowd yelled out, “Buble!” This would be a recurring theme throughout the remainder of the set. Michel just laughed at this outburst and sang a few lines in his best furrowed-brow, low-pitched jazz styling.

After finishing up a couple tunes entirely solo, the band was evidently supposed to re-emerge from backstage to join Michel for an outro. But they didn’t, so he had to yell for them a few times. They finally showed up again. Michel then got serious for a moment and introduced us to his song, “The Luckiest Man In The World.” Most of it centered simply around the “speak now or forever hold your peace” line told during a wedding ceremony. Michel declared, “I’m still holding mine.”

After all this fun, all this pensiveness, all this genuine feeling, and such a great crop of songs, the cap to the whole evening was hearing that mysterious guy again randomly yelling, “Buble!” Danny Michel gave us a fine, fine show, and it’s his name that should be screamed out at various shows intermittently. Highly recommended gig.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : May 22, 2004.